Army Surgeon Fired Back To Save His Own Life - And Failed

Flashback - ORANGE COUNTY HISTORY

John Gatlin's Bravery In Dade Massacre Was Remembered In Naming Of Fort

February 2, 1992|By Mark Andrews, Of The Sentinel Staff

Dr. Gatlin was as cool as if out in the woods shooting game and . . . dealt out death as methodically as he had formerly dealt with life, ignoring the chilling battle cries of the Indians.Pvt. Ransom Clarke Dr. John Slade Gatlin didn't come to Florida to kill Indians. He came to mend wounded soldiers and heal the sick.

But an Army surgeon assigned to the wilderness and surrounded by hostile Indians does whatever he must to stay alive.

In Gatlin's case, it wasn't enough.

The 29-year-old physician from a prominent North Carolina family was one of 104 men killed by Seminole Indians in late 1835 in what came to be known as the Dade Massacre. The incident triggered the Second Seminole War.

But Gatlin's name lives in Orange County history because three years later, the Army named a fort after him. Homesteaders who settled around it would later name their town Orlando.

Gatlin was born in Kinston, N.C., into a family that counted a number of distinguished soldiers and statesmen among its members, according to Frank Laumer's research of the Dade Massacre. Gatlin's grandfather had been the state's first governor just after the Revolutionary War.

The young Gatlin trained as a physician and enlisted in the Army at the age of 28.

His first assignments were at remote outposts such as Fort Gibson in Arkansas and Fort Jackson in Louisiana. Gatlin applied for a transfer, hoping for a more civilized environment in New York or something closer to home in North Carolina.

Instead, he was shipped to Fort Pickens near Pensacola, then to Fort Brooke at Tampa, which had fewer than 100 settlers at the time.

In December 1835, when the orders came to march inland to Fort King near present-day Ocala, Gatlin must have thought his plight couldn't get much worse, Laumer concluded.

But it did.

On Dec. 28, the company of 108 soldiers led by Maj. Francis Dade had just crossed the Withlacoochee River near what is now Bushnell in Sumter County. Gatlin was riding and talking with a lieutenant from his home state when they heard gunfire up ahead.

Gatlin was too far away to know that a gunshot had pierced Dade's heart and killed him. About half of Dade's men were killed in the first volley, fired by Indians hiding in the brush along the left side of the trail.

Although he wasn't a trained soldier, Gatlin took the two double-barreled shotguns he had brought with him for hunting and took his place beside the other survivors behind some palm fronds, firing as fast as he could reload.

For awhile, the unit held its own and forced the Indians to retreat into the woods. But over a period of eight hours, the Seminoles picked off most of the rest of Dade's men, one by one.

Only four soldiers survived the massacre. Three were wounded and escaped, while the fourth was captured. Only three Indians were killed.

Historians have speculated that Dade's company was betrayed by a slave named Louis Pacheco, who was serving as an Army guide and may have tipped off the Seminoles about the company's march to Fort King. Pacheco later took refuge with the Indians.

One of the survivors was Pvt. Ransom Clarke. He later recorded this recollection: ''We were completely surrounded by the Indians, who looked like devils yelling and whooping in such a manner that the reports of their rifles were scarcely perceptible.''

Of Gatlin, Clarke wrote, ''Dr. Gatlin was as cool as if out in the woods shooting game and . . . dealt out death as methodically as he had formerly dealt with life, ignoring the chilling battle cries of the Indians.''

The last thing Clarke remembered before losing consciousness was seeing Gatlin reload his shotguns as he waited for the Indians' next charge and hearing him say, ''Well, I've got four barrels ready for them.''

But Gatlin was killed before he got a chance to fire again.

As the war continued, the Army built Fort Gatlin in November 1838 on a knoll bordered by what are now lakes Jennie Jewel, Gatlin and Gem, just south of Orlando city limits. It served as a garrison for soldiers and a place of refuge for settlers, who began moving into the area in 1843.

The fort was abandoned in 1849 after the fear of Indian attacks had abated.